Implications of the “Do Not Track” Movement

Just when you were starting to figure it out online, leave it to potential legislation to ruin it.

Well, maybe not totally ruin it, but at least make it harder. That’s my take on the potential for FTC policy and future legislation on an Internet “Do Not Track” list. While I agree that consumers should have every right to raise their hand for privacy whenever they desire, I think it also raises the bar alot higher for marketers who don’t want to be covered by their customers’ “Do Not Track” blankets.

I’m hoping that policymakers take a good, long look at arguments like David Greene’s post on why the Do Not Track line of thinking may be misguided. While I like and agree with that line of thinking, the Do Not Track movement may have too much momentum to be stopped — Microsoft already announced that when Internet Explorer 9 is released in 2011 it will have a feature included that allows users to restrict sites from tracking them. In reality it’s just an enhancement to features already present in IE 8 and it requires some user effort to take full advantage of the feature, yet the big announcement by Microsoft (which some argue is just posturing to gain an edge) certainly added fuel to the fire.

Essentially, here’s what this functionality means for you as a marketer: Want to be able to track customer data? Then earn their trust with top-notch messaging, content and experience. Then maybe they’ll let you in.

The one sure thing is that if you don’t make an effort to earn trust, you certainly won’t be let in. So my recommendation is to address the issue now.

• Start improving the quality of your messaging so it’s personalized and relevance-based.
• Engage customers in dialogue that builds trust.
• Set high standards for process integrity and data security.
• Explain to customers what you do with their data and why it helps you help them.

Those proactive steps will help you charge ahead and become an oasis for customers in the desert of online trust.

When Sales and Marketing Don’t Mix — Part 1

I know what you’re thinking. You’re simultaneously saying “They never mix” and thinking of all the things those annoying sales people down the hall have done to you, from using outdated materials to sending customers letters and emails wrought with incorrect grammar and off-brand language. I mean, the notion that sales and marketing butt heads is not a secret — go Google “sales and marketing get along” and you get 57.5 million results.

Believe me, there is many a day that I side with you. I had one recently. Fortunately, in this case I wasn’t the marketer being wronged. I was actually on the receiving end of ill-conceived, ill-delivered, and out-of-context communications from over-eager sales folks. It’s the perfect example of what happens when marketing and sales don’t mix right (i.e., don’t have a unified, buttoned-up approach to the same business goals).

The guilty party is a company called Point It. The company is actually a notable and expert SEM/SEO agency with a great message and blue chip clients. They offer several valuable, free webinars and whitepapers on various aspects of SEM — and I love to attend and read that stuff, so it was a good match. This is a great way to engage potential customers. I gave them some basic contact info to access their materials.

A few days later I get an email out of the blue from someone at the company (withholding name here). I mean, it’s not totally out of the blue — you know that if you register for these things, you get contacted by a sales guy, it’s the third certainty now behind death and taxes. Yet this person, who knows nothing about me, proves that he knows nothing about me. Because the message is all about him. The subject line is about the company — actually, it’s the company’s name. And the message starts with “Thank you for your interest in Point It.” Really? When did I say that? I was interested in your whitepaper, yes. I guess that implies more. Fine, I’ll be flexible. “Attached is some basic information about our company.” So, you started me off with rich, deep content about the market and about SEO, and now follow it up with basic information about the company. Odd, I can find that on your site if I needed it. “When would be a good time for us to discuss search?” Did I say I wanted to do that? My flexibility ends now. Why start out with something so customer-centric — free whitepapers, free knowledge — and screw it up with a hard sell, me-talk-you-listen approach that alienates the customer? If I look for myself in that message, do I find myself?

To top it off, the entire rest of the email was about the company. Nothing about the customer. Nothing about me. No more free knowledge, no intuitive questions to learn more about me. No dialogue.

Email body copy

The good news is this can be fixed and these mistakes can be avoided. Sales and marketing do not have separate roles — marketing does not stop when someone raises their hand, so sales can pick it up and run with it. It’s your job as a marketer to equip your sales team with the messaging they need to engage. Marketing and sales need a unified strategy for the entire process of customer engagement. The standard is different now — it’s not about delivering leads so they can be closed. They must be engaged. That’s why social media and social networking are so powerful. You must listen first, have dialogue, and learn what you can do to provide value and be relevant. Relevance and engagement trumps spiffy sales pitches.

Now charge ahead and sell that to your sales team.

7 Things To Do in the Next 7 Days — Part Two

Hopefully you’ve been able to make some progress on the first three to-do’s posted not too long ago. Or, at the very least, you plan to start on them now, then come back to these four after. Anyway, here you go — four more things you need to do for the latter part of the next seven days, for all the reasons discussed here.

4. Open a Twitter account and watch the conversation.
Ok, I know for a fact alot of people think Twitter is just plain crazy. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “I just don’t get it.” However, if you’re anti-Twitter, you’re anti-customer. You’re anti-being-informed. You’re…anti-marketing.

Let me explain. Love it or hate it, customer conversation occurs on Twitter every day. Check that…every minute. And you don’t want to be part of that?

If you’re not on Twitter already, you need to open an account right now, on Day 4. Don’t like the concept? Fine, don’t even participate then, just watch the conversation. You read stuff to stay up-to-speed right? The New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, or now the five blogs you’ve already lined up, per my earlier post. Isn’t a huge group of potential customers talking amonst each other valuable too? So start the account and watch the conversation. Follow hashtags relevant to your business, products or customers, and see what’s being said. There is powerful dialogue going on and powerful sharing of thoughts, gripes, praise and ideas that you need to know about. Here’s a good WSJ tune-up article, and a video below.

You need to do this — what you learn from the dialogue impacts your marketing strategy AND your knowledge of customer needs. Guaranteed.

5. Find information about Google Wave and read it start to finish.
Part of our jobs as marketers goes beyond just using what tool are available today, like Twitter. We need to stay aware of what’s coming next, so we understand what can help us be more effective, help make our messaging more impactful, and get us closer to our customers. Enter Google Wave.

Google Wave is positioned to be a ridiculously cool new communication tool. Incredibly powerful, and alot of promise for empowering web-based conversation on a whole new level between people and among groups. Here’s an excellent article to start with, and another article that’s a preview for developers on the Official Google Blog. Mashable also has a nicely detailed article.

After those, find a few more and read those too. As marketers, when this launches, we need to be ready to use it. It’s customer dialogue on steroids. The world of social media moves at a speed unseen before, and we need to move just as fast. What’s next after Wave, what will be the next cool tool that helps us be more effective? Do your homework and you tell me.

6. Look at your current marketing spend — are you over-invested in a particular area? Fix it.
I’m not a big advocate of change for the sake of change. Yet even though the lion’s share of your customers or sales may come from one place (and by place, I mean channel or medium), you need to fix your budget and strategy if you’re spending too many of your dollars in that one place.

Being over-invested right now likely means you’re sending too much direct mail, running too many print ads, or most importantly sending too much email. You need balance — more than ever, customers have different habits, different preferences. Don’t discount channels until you’ve tested. “It’s always worked the way it is” is not a valid enough reason anymore to avoid trying and testing different channels or different messaging. Mail less, test some creative. Hell, try sending LESS email for a few months that has more relevant messaging. You may be pleasantly surprised.

7. Stop planning “monologue” marketing campaigns and create campaigns based on “dialogue” instead.
My friend Alex Krawchick said this a few weeks back, and it stuck with me. His actual quote was:

I’ve had it. If I see one more “industry thought leader” pontificate about how to “…use Twitter to increase awareness of your business…”, I’m seriously going to lose it. You s are completely missing the point. Twitter (and FB… and LinkedIn) was built as a tool for dialogue. The days of the marketing and advertising ‘monologue’ are over. Move on. Or just shut up already. Either way, smarten up.

I don’t think I need to add to that much. Well said. If you have a Twitter account, blog or other social media endeavor, use it for what it’s meant for, not as a megaphone for a one-sided message.

So there you go. Seven things to do in the next week that can make a great impact. Charge ahead.

Marketing has a Role in the Future of Content

This post is proof that a small spark can lead to a roaring flame.

I began the day reading a column from former colleague Ray Schultz, one of the best marketing journalists of the last several decades. Hours later I’m on a plane, some thoughts still kindling from reading the column, and a raging blaze emerged. Cue up the iPhone with mobile WordPress, and here we go.

The topic of Ray’s column is the future of publishing. To those who haven’t noticed, that particular future is not looking bright right now, with flagship entities like the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and countless magazines (both B2B and B2C) bleeding jobs and flat out disappearing. Not to mention advertisers slashing budgets unmercifully (for good reason). The column also speculates about the future of journalism — undoubtedly tied to the future of publishing with a heavy chain. Clearly jobs in journalism, especially in the print world, are not a good spot to be in right now.

After thinking about this for a little while, this key thought became obvious: it’s not at all about the future of publishing, or the future of journalism. It’s about the future of content.

Sure, as a business or industry or career field, you can speculate about publishing and journalism all day. Yet neither is necessarily connected at all to the future of content. People can get content in many ways without publishing or journalism involved. Many people don’t even want content from journalists at all. They want content from people just like themselves — or people not like them at all. They want content from people right in the moment — in the euphoria of victory, throes of defeat, fear of chaos, or other states of happiness or misfortune. They want dialogue, engagement and interaction — the hallmarks of social media — and not from an unreachable person behind a printed page. The future of content is give-take. It’s Twitter, it’s YouTube, it’s Facebook, it’s blogs, buzz and beyond. It’s still some printed media too. It’s whatever customers and consumers want, however they want it.

And so presents the opportunity for marketers to take a good, long look at how and where we can fill a much-needed role in the future of content. We can build communities of people (or, if you read Seth Godin, tribes) arguably faster and better than any publisher can, because we know our customers well (or at least, we’re all supposed to, right?). And customers want content. They want to talk to other customers. Happy customers want to share their experiences. Angry customers want a voice, too — and brands want an opportunity to win them back. Many people, customers or not, just want objective information. And don’t give me that “marketers can’t be objective” schpiel — time and again that’s been proven wrong, especially when it’s the community driving the content.. And journalists can be just as biased as anyone, you have to apply the same filters you’d apply when evaluating any information source.

So charge ahead and provide the types of content people want about your brands, or more importantly, about your market and about each other. Build communities of knowledge, and you’re building content. And your an active part of its future.